Slow death for sports centres

The snooker industry in Malaysia is suffering a slow and painful death as operators are not allowed to reopen their centres due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Snooker, together with bowling and ice skating venues, come under the purview of the local city and town councils as they need entertainment licences to operate.

Categorised under Phase 3 of the National Recovery Plan (NRP), the snooker centres have no timeline to resume operations.

Malaysian Snooker and Billiards Federation (MSBF) president Melvin Chia is pleading to relevant parties to help the snooker industry as many operators are contemplating closing their centres for good.

For the MSBF, their national players have neither trained nor competed in tournaments since early last year.

"Cue sports operators in the country are suffering as they cannot do business under the MCO and NRP.

"It is a blow as our athletes are also not allowed to train at our centre in Subang Jaya. We will lose a generation of top snooker players if things do not get going soon.

"Our training centre is in Subang Jaya, which we are sharing with a private operator, as we do not have a place to train at the National Sports Complex in Bukit Jalil," said Melvin.

The national players will play their first competition of the season at the Asian Snooker Championship on Sept 11-16, followed by the Six-Red World Championship on Sept 17-21, both in Doha, Qatar.

"Both competitions are important as our players need to gauge their standard against their rivals ahead of next year's Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Bangkok."

"We also need to unearth new talents to replace our seasoned campaigners. Currently, we do not have a proper plan to develop up-and-coming players," said Melvin.

Moh Keen Hoo and Lim Kok Leong will be representing Malaysia in both tournaments in Doha.

"In the 1990s, Malaysia were among the top three nations in snooker. However, we lost ground as it has been tough to raise money to develop new players.

"Many sponsors stay away from cue sports, as they think snooker and pool promote unhealthy habits.

"I hope we can meet Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Reezal Merican Naina Merican soon to explain our plight. We have proposals but do not have the funds to get things going," he added.